So the consensus from our comments appeared to be that “Town Crier” was a winner. Let’s roll with it, shall we? Although I retain my right to change it again later, since to be honest there were like a million awesome suggestions in that thread (you guys are so much smarter than I am! that’s not sarcasm!).
Recaps (lots and lots and lots of ’em) and other assorted links follow below the jump.
Game Recaps
- Let’s start at the LA Times, shall we? Helene Elliott sees right through Mike Richards‘ whole “good humble Canadian boy” schtick and rightfully points out how great he was. She ends it with a great zinger at Dustin Penner, too. Quite the bookend there. [LA Times]
- On the other side of things, Brad Zeimer at the Vancouver Sun has some zingers of his own, starting right off the bat with a wicked jab at the entire team. I like the vague sense of shock that the LA Kings actually might be a good hockey team. So far from what I can tell most of the established hockey media looked up our position in the standings and our 29th ranked offense and called it a day as far as pre-series scouting went. Hopefully the actual Canucks team was just as thorough. [VS]
- More mainstream Canadian reaction via the National Post and the Globe & Mail. I didn’t actually read these, because how many times can you read some variation on “underdog Kings” and “Canucks didn’t show up”? But if you like variety in your non-variety, here you go. [NP] [G&M]
- Over at the Backhand Shelf blog we get another, more fun recap, complete with video clips. Chris Lund pretty much speaks for all of us I think when he asks for “Game 2 now. Please.” The hardest part of the playoffs is easily all the waiting between games, just because a couple days can feel like an eternity. Oh boy is that gap between games 3 & 4 going to be fun. [BS]
- Rich Hammond has his usual stats-heavy notes from Game 1, if you’re into that sort of thing. Also of course he’s got interview notes with a lot of Kings, although disappointingly enough coach Darryl Sutter has apparently toned himself down a bit for the playoffs. Where’s the barely-intelligible, double-negative-loving Sutter that I’ve come to know and love?! [Kings Insider]
- The Royal Half has a gif-happy recap basically just mocking the Canucks incessantly. But but they’re such nice fellows! His pick for #1 star was the LA Kings Twitter feed, you say? Oh trust me we’ll get to that in a second. [RH]
- Tired of reading things? Want a recap in podcast form instead? The fine folks at All the Kings Men (which actually I guess is more like the folks from about twelve different Kings blogs; if the Kings blogosphere were terrible late 90s/early 00s pop-punk bands then All the Kings Men would be Me First and the Gimme Gimmes) have you covered! [AtKM]
- Finally, a pretty hilarious recap from Nucks Misconduct. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Vancouver fan is upset with the referees! Shock and horror! Although to be fair, there were plenty of other Canucks fans calling him out on it in the comments. Also BoC’s RudyKelly stops by to troll him and it’s pretty funny, not gonna lie. Maybe just skip the recap and go straight to the comments section. [NM]
Other Kings Notes
- Let’s start with TWITTERGATE 2012!!! In case you didn’t hear, the LA Kings sent out the most awesome Tweet in the history of the universe following last night’s game:/
(stick-tap on the picture to canucksarmy.com, who we’ll get back to in a second)
- So yeah, that’s pretty awesome. It also, as you might imagine, made a bunch of thin-skinned Nucks fans lose their minds on Twitter, and a couple of mainstream hockey press types even joined in for some adult-like finger-waggering. Kind of a silly thing to get worked up about, don’t you think? I mean come on guys, did you SEE the refereeing in that game?! It was awful!
Fortunately, the guys at CanucksArmy agreed (on it being a silly thing to get worked up over; actually you know what, I’m sure they agreed that the refereeing was awful too, I mean they are still Canucks fans after all). Here’s an excellent piece from Thomas Drance defending the Kings’ Twitter feed and basically telling his fellow ‘Nucks fans to take a chill pill (I have been waiting to work “take a chill pill” into a hockey article in 2012 for longer than you can imagine). The chorus of fans agreeing with him in the comments may just reaffirm your belief in humanity, if only for a brief, shining moment. [CA] - Unfortunately, there were still enough people complaining that the Kings felt the need to apologize, so here’s a brief little Globe & Mail article on that. At least their apology was a little defiant, and Dave Shoalts decided to take a few light jabs at the complainers while he was at it (instantly boosting his cred in my book). [G&M]
- Alright, enough of TwitterGate, because as amusing as it was it doesn’t actually matter. Going back to the Backhand Shelf for a moment, those of you who (like me) love their podcast are probably thrilled to know they’re expanding from a M/W/F schedule to a daily one during the playoffs. Yay! Today’s show had quite a bit on the aforementioned TwitterGate and Game 1 between the Kings & Canucks, along with coverage of the other two Game #1s, of course. Well worth checking out. [BS] /
SPECIAL UPDATE ON TWITTERGATE (I know I said I was done with it but you’ll forgive me in a second): according to @AndrewBuholtz, the “fallout” from the @LAKings TWEET OF DEATH actually lead the 6 pm newscasts on CBC, CTV, and Global. For those of you who aren’t aware of Canadian broadcasters, replace that with “CBS, NBC, and Fox” and same difference (basically). I swear to god, this is true. I honestly have very little else to say about it, because my brain is still trying to process this as fact.
Other Links
- Fun fact: there were other games on last night! Let’s start with Pens/Flyers, which featured Kings East getting down 3-0 and then scoring 4 unanswered goals to complete an amazing comeback. Does this mean everyone not named “The Copper & Blue” has started to figure out that Marc-Andre Fleury is terrible? [Broad Street Hockey] [PensBurgh]
- Meanwhile in Nashville, some pucks went off some dudes’ skates and stick shafts and the Red Wings lost in semi-humorous fashion. Hey, did I mention last night rocked? [On the Forecheck] [Winging it in Motown]
- Staying in Nashville for a moment, Shea Weber decided to grab Henrik Zetterberg’s head and introduce it into the stanchion. “Hello, stanchion, have you met this fine chap named Henrik?” “Why I don’t believe I have, Mr. Weber, why don’t you bring him in real close so I can get a look at him?” “If you insist!” *bam* Anyway he got a fine, not a suspension. Sure, whatever. [On the Forecheck]
- TONIGHT: more Game 1s! In fact, after tonight, only Panthers–Devils will have yet to begin, probably because the NHL recognizes no one is actually going to watch it anyway. Good call, NHL! We’ve got the #1 New York Rangers vs. #8 Ottawa Senators (4:00 pm PST/NHL Network), #2 Washington Capitals vs. #7 Boston Bruins (4:30 pm PST/NBC Sports Network), #2 St. Louis Blues vs. #7 San Jose Sharks (4:30 pm PST/CNBC), and the #3 Phoenix Coyotes vs. #6 Chicago Blackhawks (7 pm PST/NBC Sports Network). Should we politely cheer for the Sharks since Fear the Fin was one of the few quasi-real media outlets to actually pick us over the Canucks? Nahhhhh.
As always, please tell me if there’s broken links so I can fix them, and if you’ve got any links of your own to add in (or just pictures of people in Vancouver crying, those are cool too), post ’em up and let’s go! (THUMBS UP!)
Dammit, think I’ve been reading that Don Cherry Parody Twitter account too long…